Administration

How do universities continue to build their capacity during a time period of decreasing enrollments and demographic change? As enrollment managers struggle to maintain strong student volume and achieve degree attainment goals, it is critical to build broader and deeper channels for both attracting students and aligning new enrollment with institutional capacity.

Historically, as enrollment professionals, we have primarily thought of international partnerships as a method of attracting additional degree-seeking students from abroad, particularly from a small group of sending countries. International program development can also help us manage our domestic student population, however, by offering additional tools to attract new students, differentiating our programs, and outsourcing our overcapacity in ways that benefit both students and international partner institutions.

Other examples might be a decline in department majors, using instructional technology, adding research expectations, and initiating graduate programming. In each case, there is either a problem to solve or a new venture to consider. All will bring change and all will likely generate resistors. Again, some will be the result of self-interest while others will be because of self-perceptions of inadequacy.

The faculty in our colleges and universities are frequently portrayed as being the focal point of resistance to change within the academy. When one spends many years in the academy, one will realize that resistance to doing things differently is a trait that exists in administrative ranks as well. In fact, change is difficult for everyone, although the range of tolerance for change is a wide one. Any change, no matter how small or inconsequential, leads to a level of resistance from some quarter. Higher education attracts a wide range of personalities who can express their opinions without fearing many sanctions due to tenure protection and generally more tolerant management.

Viewing the change agenda through a political lens requires significant insight, careful forethought, and planning on the part of the leader. Regardless of the level of the leader, there are immediate clusters of personnel who represent the first wave of those who must be brought into the fold of supporting the initiative. A president may have to take this approach with a cluster of deans who represent many diverse schools, each with a unique blend of missions, cultures, values, aspirations, and ways of conducting business. Similarly, a dean would have to gain the support of faculty chairs as the first steps to success. The true complexity of higher education is most evident when considering change through the political frame.

Have you ever witnessed a keynote address in which a new university president shared such an inspiring and imaginative future strategy that you wished you were a part of that institution’s implementation team? Innovative thinkers who transform their vision into eloquent language can have that effect on their audiences. Assuming no bad behavior, how would one explain that two years later that same institution has launched a presidential search? One could list several reasons for this, including personal or family illness or an attractive offer elsewhere. However, in some cases the failure is due to the inability to implement the plan to achieve the vision. This failure would not only disappoint the president but would also be a blow to the governing board, faculty, and students who brought this individual to campus.

As students continue to show interest in taking online courses, and faculty continue to be interested in teaching them, colleges and universities are, in many cases, expanding efforts to increase online programming for their students. This article discusses seven strategies to consider for growing online course and program offerings.

As changes among traditional faculty lines have taken place, and as new appointment types have emerged and been adopted, little thought seems to have been given to establishing the ideal balance of instructional resources in a given unit, neither has there been much planning for future changes that would result in new ratios or mixes of instructional types. Rather, new appointments are made on an ad hoc basis to address present needs. In addition, the increase in the different types of faculty appointments means that alternative training, orientation, evaluation, and development programs are called for, and it is often years after a new appointment type is made that these sorts of issues are recognized and dealt with. Finally, another critical challenge is assimilating these individuals into the tenure track (TT)-dominated culture of higher education such that there is mutual respect and understanding for the contributions of all parties. The responsibility for addressing these issues lies primarily with the department chair and secondarily with the dean who approves all full-time hiring and who has oversight of academic programs across departments.

Ten years ago, I was a new director of admissions at the University of Michigan- Flint with an enormous goal: to grow enrollment at a school that had many competitors in the state. I was encouraged because we had strong leadership, a good product, great staff, and a strong infrastructure. We also had a customer relationship management system (CRM) with a bridge to our student information system (Banner). In admissions, we had a CRM manager, a business analyst, and a Banner specialist. This team was supported by a divisional ITS person who was very forward-thinking. In all, the team was small but mighty.

Although much has been written and discussed about MOOCs’ educational, access-opening, and revenue-generating potential, less is known about their legal implications. Administrators and faculty interested in MOOCs need to consider not only pedagogical and financial concerns but also legal concerns before getting involved, says Linda Enghagen, attorney and professor in the Isenberg School of Management at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.